IICA to promote Brazil’s experience in the field of rural area-based development

San Jose, Costa Rica, June 28, 2013 (IICA). The decision to promote rural area-based development as a government program rather than an initiative of only certain ministries or specific sectors, has yielded results that have improved the living conditions of millions of rural dwellers in Brazil.

“In recent years, Brazil has endeavored to lift almost 35 million people out of poverty and enable them to have a higher standard of living, especially greater purchasing power, and I believe that that was an important paradigm shift,” affirmed Brazil’s former Secretary for Area-based Development, Humberto Oliveira, who is presently working as a consultant for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in his country.

“Instead of a government outlay, investing in the poor has proven to be an investment in the growth of the country,” the expert remarked. Before being extended to the rest of Brazil, the approach was applied by some local governments with support from IICA.

“That is an important point. Before the government rolled out its policy nationwide, IICA contributed its expertise with respect to the implementation of public policies in the rural milieu, something that represented a major challenge for a country like Brazil, used to working by sectors,” Oliveira observed.

In Brazil, IICA and the national agricultural authorities continue to operate the Standing Forum on Sustainable Rural Development (Fórum DRS), which meets once a year to enable stakeholders from the public and private sectors, academia, and a number of rural territories in different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, to find joint solutions to the challenges facing rural areas.

In addition to its annual onsite meeting, the Fórum DRS promotes interaction via the Web and social networks by continually publishing multimedia news and documents on rural development.

Thus, Brazil’s experience is already being shared with a wider audience, and the process is only just getting off the ground. “To make Brazil’s important role in rural area-based development more visible, IICA will be disseminating the publications of the Fórum DRS at the international level, and proposing that the country serve as a hemispheric reference center for the application of the approach,” announced the Institute’s Director of Management and Regional Integration, Diego Montenegro.

As a state policy in Brazil, the area-based approach to rural development has made it possible to empower neglected social groups and turn them into key players in efforts in the areas of social inclusion, gender equity, economic growth, poverty reduction, education and environmental conservation, reported Byron Miranda, the Manager of IICA’s Agriculture, Territories and Rural Well-being Program.

Brazil’s rural areas

Because of the country’s huge size and economic strength, Brazil’s agriculture and rural areas have special characteristics.

“Two types of agriculture exist side by side. One is the agribusiness subsector, a major source of employment in large-scale operations, which is high tech and geared toward exports. The other is family agriculture, which comprises nearly 4.5 million rural families that farm the land and are involved in the market—they do not only produce for their own consumption,” Oliveira noted.

The IICA consultant gave an interesting statistic: 75% of the labor force in Brazil’s rural areas is involved in family farming.

“In this type of agriculture, people remain in the same area, not only as producers but as the custodians of their rural heritage—the environment, nature, and traditional knowledge expressed in literature, music or gastronomy,” added Oliveira, who works for the IICA projectRethinking the Concept of Rurality in Brazil: implications for public policies.

“The territory in which people live is very important for family agriculture. If we understand this relationship, we will attach greater value to rural areas,” he asserted.

The Rethinking project and the rest of Latin America

Manuel Otero, IICA Representative in Brazil, observed that the project that his Office is implementing is designed to raise awareness of the value of the rural milieu, which should then be reflected in national development policies. “This project can have a big impact, not only in Brazil but throughout Latin America,” he observed.

In addition to Brazil, the Rethinking project takes into consideration the rural area-based development experiences of Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay, as well as those of Spain, France and the Netherlands.

“This project is a clear example of IICA’s work in Brazil. It strikes a balance between the positions of academia, which has strong conceptual ideas, and our counterparts, the ministries—in this case the Ministry of Agrarian Development, to which we will present policy proposals,” Otero added.

According to Carlos Miranda, IICA’s rural area-based development specialist in Brazil, the project will produce a new characterization of the rural milieu that will lead to changes in the country’s legislation, since it will be submitted to the Senate Commission on Agrarian Reform and Agriculture.

“IICA will provide a platform for sharing the results with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. This innovative initiative will place the Institute on the cutting edge as far as these subjects are concerned,” he observed.

The results of the project Rethinking the Concept of Rurality in Brazil will be presented to the nation’s Senate in the coming weeks, Carlos Miranda pointed out.

For more information, contact: 
manuel.otero@iica.int